Sunday, July 17, 2011

Obama Flubs Another One

Back two years ago I excused the "misteps" of Obama to his being new to the job, stressed for so many issues on his plate, and misguided by his aides. But after two and a half years, these "misteps" are regular and recurring, so they are the real deal. This is Obama. He is a centrist who simply ignores the left of his party. He happily used the enthusiasm of the left to get elected, but he has continued to stiff them ever since. The left in the Democratic party need to run their own candidate for President.

President Obama said Sunday that he would nominate Richard Cordray, the former attorney general of Ohio, to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, passing over Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who was the driving force behind the agency’s creation.

Was this a decision that “reflects political realities”, as the report says? Well, the report itself refutes that claim:

While Ms. Warren received the brunt of the scrutiny, Wall Street executives also bristled at the selection of Mr. Cordray to lead the bureau’s enforcement team. Seen as a zealous prosecutor of financial crime, Mr. Cordray is a similarly contentious figure among bankers and lobbyists.

Republicans made it clear on Sunday that they were no more likely to confirm Mr. Cordray than Ms. Warren. Forty-four Republican senators have signed a letter saying they would refuse to vote on any nominee to lead the bureau, demanding instead that the agency replace a single leader with a board of directors.

What’s going to happen, then, is no director for the CFPB in any case. But meanwhile Obama has passed up a chance to symbolically align himself with the public and against the banksters.

Sad. Really sad.

The Republicans are going to fight anybody Obama appoints. The fact that Obama passed over Elizabeth Warren indicates his deep commitment to the Wall Street banks and his failure to lead the country out of the financial mess of the 2008 meltdown. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the one hope of giving ordinary people a chance against the rapacious banks. But Obama has sided with the banks. He will treat this bureau as a sop to the left wing and will never give it the power to rein in the greed of the big banks.